Indian people or Indians are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of India or people who trace their ancestry to India. While the demonym "Indian" applies to people originating from the present-day India, it was also used as the identifying term for people originating from what is now Bangladesh and Pakistan prior to the Partition of India in 1947. The term "Indian" does not refer to a single ethnic group, but is used as a social construct for the various ethnic groups in or from India.
In 2022, the population of India stood at 1.4 billion people. According to United Nations forecasts, India overtook China as the world's most populous country by the end of April 2023, containing 17.50 percent of the global population."India's population to surpass China this week - UN" . BBC. April 24, 2023. Retrieved June 24, 2023. The Indian overseas diaspora also boasts large numbers, particularly in Arab states of the Persian Gulf and in the Western world (especially the Anglosphere), as well as historic descendant populations in various countries that were part of the British Empire (particularly in the Caribbean and South Africa) due to the Indian indenture system.
Particularly in North America and the Caribbean, the terms "Asian Indian" and "East Indian" are sometimes used to differentiate Indians from the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Although the misidentification of Indigenous Americans as Indians occurred during the European colonisation of the Americas, the term "Indian" is still used as an identifier for indigenous populations in North America and the Caribbean. This usage is growing rarer, as terms such as Indigenous, Amerindian, and specifically First Nations in Canada, and Native American in the United States, are widely used in official discourse, census, and law. Ethnonym
The name Bhārata has been used as a self-ascribed name by people of the Indian subcontinent and the Republic of India since 1949.Article 1 of the English version of the Constitution of India: "India that is Bharat shall be a Union of States." The designation "Bhārata" appears in the official Sanskrit name of the country, Bhārata Gaṇarājya. The name is derived from the ancient Vedic and Puranas, which refer to the land that constitutes India as Bhārata varṣam and uses this term to distinguish it from other varṣas or continents. The Bhāratas were a Vedic tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, notably participating in the Battle of the Ten Kings.Schmidt, H.P. Notes on Rgveda 7.18.5-10. Indica. Organ of the Heras Institute, Bombay. Vol.17, 1980, 41–47. India is named after legendary Emperor Bharata who was a descendant of the Bhāratas tribe, scion of Kuru Kingdom who unified the Indian subcontinent under one realm.National Council of Educational Research and Training, History Text Book, Part 1, India
"The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata."-Vishnu Purana
In early Vedic literature, the term Āryāvarta (Sanskrit: आर्यावर्त) was in popular use before Bhārata. The Manusmṛti (2.22) gives the name Āryāvarta to "the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the Eastern (Bay of Bengal) to the Western Sea (Arabian Sea)".Michael Cook (2014), Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective, Princeton University Press, p.68: "Aryavarta [...] is defined by Manu as extending from the Himalayas in the north to the Vindhyas of Central India in the south and from the sea in the west to the sea in the east."
While the word Indian and India is derived from Greek (Indía), via Latin India. Indía in Koine Greek denoted the region beyond the Indus () river, since Herodotus (5th century BC) , hē Indikē chōrē; "the Indian land", , Indos, "an Indian", from Old Persian Hinduš and medieval term Hindustani.Hudson, John C., ed., Goode's World Atlas 20th Edition Chicago, Illinois, USA:2000—Rand McNally Map Page 203 Major Languages of India—map of the ethnolinguistic groups of India The name is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the river Indus, but also meaning "river" generically.
History
Ancient era
The history of India includes the prehistoric settlements and societies in the Indian subcontinent; the blending of the Indus Valley Civilisation and Indo-Aryan culture into the Vedic period; the development of Hinduism as a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions; the rise of sixteen oligarchic republics known as Mahajanapadas; the rise of the Śramaṇa movement; the birth of Jainism and Buddhism in the 6th century BCE, and the onset of a succession of powerful dynasties and empires for more than two millennia throughout various geographic areas of the subcontinent, including the growth of Muslim dynasties during the medieval period intertwined with Hindu powers; the advent of European traders resulting in the establishment of British India; and the subsequent independence movement that led to the Partition of India and the creation of the Republic of India.
The Indian people established during the ancient and medieval periods to the early eighteenth century some of the greatest empires and dynasties in South Asian history like the Maurya Empire, Satavahana dynasty, Gupta Empire, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Chalukya Empire, Chola Empire, Karkota Empire, Pala Empire, Vijayanagara Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire, Maratha Confederacy, and the Sikh Empire. The first great empire of the Indian people was the Maurya Empire having Patliputra (near present-day Patna, Bihar) as its capital. The Empire conquered major parts of South Asia in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka alongside their senior advisor, Acharya Chanakya, the world's pioneer of the fields of political science and economics. The next great ancient empire of the Indian people was the Gupta Empire. This period, witnessing a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence, is known as the classical or "Golden Age of India". During this period, aspects of Indian civilisation, administration, culture, and Hinduism and Buddhism spread to much of Asia, while the Chola Empire in the south had flourishing maritime trade links with the Roman Empire during this period. The ancient Indian mathematicians Aryabhata, Bhāskara I and Brahmagupta invented the concept of zero and the Hindu–Arabic numeral system during this period.The Earth and Its Peoples by Richard Bulliet, Pamela Crossley, Daniel Headrick, Steven Hirsch, Lyman Johnson p.192 During this period Indian cultural influence spread over many parts of Southeast Asia which led to the establishment of Indianised kingdoms in Southeast Asia.The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: From early times to c. 1800, Band 1 by Nicholas Tarling p.281
Medieval era During the early medieval period the Rashtrakuta dynasty governed most of central India from the 8th to 10th centuries and Amoghavarsha of this dynasty was described by the Arab traveller Sulaiman al-Tajir as one of the four great kings of the world.The Shaping of Modern Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva, and Beyond; Acyuta Yājñika, Suchitra Sheth, Penguins Books, (2005), p.42, The medieval south Indian mathematician Mahāvīra lived in the Rashtrakuta dynasty and was the first Indian mathematician who separated astrology from mathematics and who wrote the earliest Indian text entirely devoted to mathematics.The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones by Clifford A. Pickover: page 88 The greatest maritime empire of the medieval Indians was the Chola dynasty. Under the great Rajaraja Chola I and his successor Rajendra Chola I the Chola dynasty became a military, economic and cultural power in South and Southeast Asia.Kulke and Rothermund, p 115Keay, p 215 The power of the Chola Empire was proclaimed to the eastern world by the expedition to the Ganges which Rajendra Chola I undertook and by the occupation of cities of the maritime empire of Srivijaya in Southeast Asia, as well as by the repeated embassies to China.K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India, p 158
During the late medieval period the great Vijayanagara Empire ruled most of southern India from the 14th to 16th centuries and reached its peak during the reign of Sri Krishnadevaraya.Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture by John Stewart Bowman p.270 The medieval Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics flourished during this period under such well known south Indian mathematicians as Madhava (), who made important contributions to trigonometry and calculus, and Nilakhanta (c. 1444–1545), who postulated on the orbitals of planets."History of Science and Philosophy of Science: A Historical Perspective of the Evolution of Ideas in Science", editor: Pradip Kumar Sengupta, author: Subhash Kak, 2010, p91, vol XIII, part 6, Publisher: Pearson Longman,
Modern era The Mughal Empire consolidated much of the Indian subcontinent under a single realm. Under the Mughals, India developed a strong and stable economy, leading to commercial expansion and greater patronage of culture, greatly influencing Indian society. The Mughal Empire balanced and pacified local societies through new administrative practices and had diverse and inclusive ruling elites, leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. Newly coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the Rajputs, the Pathans, the Jats and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule, which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military experience.
Following the death of Aurangzeb in the early 18th century, the empire saw the emergence of autonomous regional powers such as Marathas, the Rajputs and various de facto independent Mughal governors and other Hindu and Muslim princely states, though they all continued to recognise the Mughal emperor as their suzerain.Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History by Ravinder Kumar p.5 The period also saw the emergence of the British East India Company who took control of large parts of the empire, though they nominally ruled and traded under the authority of the emperor and nominally considered him as their suzerain. The regions under Company rule witnessed a period of rapid development of infrastructure, economic decline and major famines.Metcalf, B.; Metcalf, T.R. (2006), A Concise History of Modern India (2nd ed.), pp. 94–99. During the first half of the 20th century, a nationwide struggle for Indian independence movement was launched, the Indian subcontinent gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, after the British provinces were partitioned into the dominions of India and Pakistan and the princely states all acceded to one of the new states.
Culture